All My Own
by Jana Kay
Summary: The truth of what Dawn is can't stay a secret forever. Especially not from her. (This was written *before* 'Blood Ties' was shown.)


TITLE: All My Own  
AUTHOR: Jana Kay  
EMAIL: jana_kay17@yahoo.com.au  
DISCLAIMER: All characters named here belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB, 20th Century Fox and   
various others. No profit being made, I'm just playing.  
RATING: PG   
SPOILERS: General S5 spoilers   
SUMMARY: The truth of what Dawn is can't stay a secret forever. Especially not from her.   
  
*****  
  
Have you ever had the feeling of not fully knowing who you are?  
  
Of looking into the mirror and seeing a stranger instead of the face that's looked back at you for fourteen years?  
  
I'm having that feeling right now. As well as freaking out, because discovering through your dreams that you're not   
really a person can do that to somebody.  
  
Yesterday when I'd close my eyes, I'd see Xander smiling at me, laughing with me, and I'd see flowers and my ideal   
prom dress and my mom and my sister the Slayer ...  
  
... but now, all I see is silver and white flashes of a past that's everybody else's except mine, no matter that it looks like   
I'm in it. And when I'm not consciously ignoring it, hands curled into fists and muscles tight in defiance, I see fragments   
of the pulse of searing Energy that threatens to burn me from the inside out.  
  
Hair and clothes and skin and bones ... it can make it all go away ... but it can't ... because that Energy is me, running   
frantically along beneath the surface of skin that isn't really mine, dancing and zigzagging back and forth between veins   
and arteries and a multitude of tiny capillaries, hopping and barreling through muscle and tissue and sinew just waiting   
to be set free.   
  
And it's otherworldly. Until yesterday, I thought my big sister the Slayer was the only otherworldly member of the family.  
  
And it hurts to suddenly realise that I'm not family.   
  
Buffy Anne Summers is not my big sister, and her mother is not my mother, and the reason I don't look anything like   
their blonde hair and blue eyes is because I'm *not* *them*.  
  
Not of their blood, or of their flesh. I guess I'm not even blood or flesh of any kind really.   
  
Just Energy.  
  
Ancient, pure Energy, fashioned into the body of a young girl who just wants to be loved by the man she has a huge crush   
on, who just wants to ace her next history and French tests so she can make her now not-family proud.  
  
And what's creeping in behind my now knowing eyes is not ancient wisdom, readying me to truly become this Key that   
Evil searches for, but tears, equally as ancient, and just as equally hopeless, because they can't help me.  
  
Nothing can help me.  
  
And there's a hollow, gnawing ache inside of me that the truth of myself brings, that I know nobody should have to feel.   
  
Not now, not ever.   
  
You know, I have memories of Buffy running away once, two years ago, when all this bad stuff happened to her that   
forced her to make the decision to go. To just run far away from it all and wander and wallow in her own grief and   
hopelessness and rage and self-pity.  
  
And I think to myself as I pack up my bag, at least my leaving to scream my impotent anger at the world will be real to  
me. A memory that's mine and mine alone, and no monks or monsters or ancient Energy that no amount of opening skin   
will get rid of, is going to take this away from me.  
  
They can take everything else because all that never really happened to me, but this ... this swinging of the stupid bag   
over my stupid shoulder, and the tired weight in my step as I walk down the stairs, and the hopelessness and rage with   
which I slam the front door shut as I leave ... they just can't take this away, because this ... this is real, and I can feel it.  
  
Really feel it.   
  
And the Energy rushing like a wild and out-of-control storm beneath my fingertips, crackling like a raging forest fire as   
it devours tree after tree that stands in its path can feel it too, and my head hurts with pain because I'm leaving the only   
home I've ever known that isn't really home after all, and my eyes sting with betrayal and hate at what they made me   
believe and then ripped away from me and everything seems to be compounding down to this moment alone and this   
moment is mine like no other moment every truly was and I hate you because I'm just a girl!  
  
I was only a girl with big dreams!   
  
Why did you take that away from me?!  
  
And I don't care if I'm screaming at the black and empty sky, because this pain is something real too.  
  
Not just a memory I was created with that haunts me now with smiles and laughter that didn't really happen because   
they. Are. Not. Real.  
  
And it. Is. Not. Fair.  
  
And I hate you all, do you hear me!!  
  
You're all liars and you all knew and you all made me love you and call you friend and family and safe and home!  
  
And it's fitting as I turn and leave that the moon hides in shame behind a black-as-death cloud.  
  
Yeah, you go. Run away and hide. Leave me alone and leave me in peace.   
  
I don't need you. I never did. Because I. Am. Not. Real ...  
  
But come out again when I'm gone and ... watch over them.  
  
Because the memories may not be real but they're still there, crowding my head and fighting for purchase, and no   
amount of tears or words or running away will make them go.   
  
And I love them all too much.  
  
Even the people I've never met that exist only in a mind created by others. People like Angel and Cordelia, Wesley   
and Oz and my other sister Faith.  
  
And as smart as these monks were to fashion pure Energy into a person and give it life, they weren't totally smart,   
because this Energy girl has a mind of her own, and she isn't ready to be this so called Key thing yet. So the Evil   
looking for it is just gonna have to wait.  
  
Because they made me into a teenager and dammit, I still want to live this teenage life. I'm not ready to be anybody   
of any great amount of worth right now ... I don't wanna be like Buffy and save the world ... not now, maybe not ever,   
and I. Do. Not . Care what the fierce pulsing beneath my skin has to say ...  
  
You're not going anywhere. I have a life to live too you know ...  
  
... so I'm going ... I'm leaving.  
  
To make some memories I can call my own.  
  
And when I'm done, when I've filled my head to bursting and I feel like I'm ready, then I'll come back, and we'll see   
about what happens next in the story when it happens ...  
  
But until then ... I'm going all on my own.  
  
  
The End.  



End file.
